Sorry for my absence, this is still on the go. Didn't get anything done worth posting last summer because of time spent on our other vehicles. Winters are just too cold here for any type of sandblasting or painting but I have been researching, saving and scrounging for parts the whole time.
One of the things I wanted to take care of first was the rear brakes. I had planned on a disc conversion from the start but not sure which path to go. I considered the Cadillac calipers but decided against them. I figured I could adapt existing Chevy parts and still have the parking brake system. We have random spot checks here by the Ministry and that's one of the first things they look at.
Finding a rear axle from a 2005 Chevy one ton van was my starting point and I got these caliper mounts from it. I looked at some part numbers and I will be using 2005 Chevy 2500HD rotors, pads, shoes and hardware.
I had planned on getting some thick steel plate and fabbing up a mounting flange that I could weld onto the axle tube and then bolting this bracket to it. But I decided that was a bit over my head and beyond the tools I have so I just brought the whole axle assy home to take the flanges off and be done with it.
I just sliced through the axle tube to free up the flanges and then cleaned them up after. Part of the original axle was trapped inside the flange and I used a die grinder to open up the hole to fit onto my 14 bolt. Otherwise the original hole would have been much too big.
I was worried about precision and accuracy when welding this flange onto my axle and was hoping that I could incorporate the original flange to make things easier but the two are not even close plus the fact that the original was preventing the replacement flange to be where it should be so it was removed.
